


The Best of the Worst

by aban_ataashi



Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Found Family, Gen, Prompt Fill, ellie has friends and is mad about it, reluctant found family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27597449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aban_ataashi/pseuds/aban_ataashi
Summary: It was sentimental crap, the kind of stuff a kid with his head full of idealism and revolution and dime-a-dozen adventure serials would come up with. And yet once Felix said the damn thing, she couldn’t get it out of her head.
Relationships: The Captain & Ellie Fenhill
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	The Best of the Worst

_Like a family,_ Felix said. The naïve little shit.

It was sentimental crap, the kind of stuff a kid with his head full of idealism and revolution and dime-a-dozen adventure serials would come up with. Ellie knew better than that. They weren’t a family, they were a _crew._ Sure, they had to trust each other, to an extent, to keep from falling apart, but _family_ was pushing it.

Besides, Ellie already had one of those. She had no interest in putting herself through that kind of shit again. She was perfectly happy being cynical and independent and far, far away from anything resembling the kind of suffocation and injury that sort of attachment inevitable brought on.

And yet once Felix said the damn thing, she couldn’t get it out of her head. The words echoed through her head for days, lingering in her mind the way expired saltuna lingered on the tongue.

 _Like a family,_ a treacherous little voice whispered when she found that Parvati had calibrated her weapons and repaired her armor without being asked. _Like a family,_ it whispered when she and Nyoka spent an afternoon drinking Zero Gee cocktails and practicing their headshots on a dummy in the cargo bay. _Like a family,_ when she pestered Max into a fit of irritation, _like a family_ when Felix did the same to her.

That’s not what they were, Ellie insisted fiercely, desperately to herself. They were people held together by a ship and a paycheck. They didn’t care. _She_ didn’t care. She couldn’t afford to. She already had debts racking up, each loan and gesture and unrequested favor tallied in her head so she could ensure that at the end of the day she was beholden to nobody but herself.

Ellie wasn’t used to the concept causing her such conflict, and she placed the blame squarely upon the shoulders of Imogen March. Felix may have voiced the idea, but Captain Imogen was undoubtedly the source.

 _“You can’t live your life thinking the worst of everyone,”_ she had told Ellie once. That was the sort of thing Imogen said with utmost sincerity, despite the number of times she’d been shot at and lied to and swindled. The was the sort of thing she believed.

It was the sort of thing that would get her killed one of these days. Despite her occasional uncanny perceptiveness, the Captain was almost painfully naïve in trusting others. She was free to make her own decisions, of course, and Ellie was perfectly happy to mind her own business while Imogen chased her pretty daydreams. Let the Captain make promises to the other crewmates and bond with the AI and put all her faith in a literal mad scientist; it simply wasn’t Ellie’s business.

But for a woman who could be so smart when she chose, some things just didn’t make sense, and eventually Ellie had to ask.

“Why put yourself through all this?”

The question took Imogen by surprise. She looked up from the purpleberry soda she’d been nursing at the kitchen table, brow furrowed. “I know it ain’t the best flavor in the universe, but I gotta drink something.”

Ellie snorted and waved her hand. “Not the purpleberry, although that shit’s more likely to kill you than a mantisaur. I mean…Phineas has got you running to steal dangerous chemicals, right from under the Board’s noses, in Byzantium. _Byzantium._ Nothing good happens there, I promise you that.”

Imogen opened her mouth to answer, and Ellie hurried to add, “And I know you think you’re saving the colony and your folks on the Hope and all that. But the Board could probably do it just as well, with a bigger paycheck and less chance of getting yourself killed.”

After a moment’s consideration, Imogen sighed and said, “I just think it’s the right thing to do. There’s a lot in Halcyon that needs fixin’, Ellie, I admit that. And the Board ain’t competent enough to fix a vending machine. So I’m gonna try my hand at it and trust that at least I can’t do worse than them.”

“What, just ‘cause it’s broken, it’s now your job to fix it?” Ellie challenged, but of course she knew the answer was yes. It was Imogen’s job to fix everything, apparently, from broken machinery to broken people to broken systems of government. But at the end of the day she was still just a person, with ideals bigger than her own common sense, who saw trustworthiness where she really, really shouldn’t.

Ellie sighed and rubbed her temple, trying to chase the thoughts away. “Look, Cap, I know you wanna save the day. But don’t forget to look out for yourself. No one else out here is going to.”

An unexpected smile crept onto Imogen’s face as she studied Ellie, and Ellie didn’t like the look that crossed her face one bit. She frowned on instinct. “What?”

“Nothin’,” Imogen said innocently. “I just didn’t know you cared so much.”

Ellie scowled and threw a mock apple at her, which Imogen caught with a laugh. “And there you go again. You realize you’re besmirching a reputation I’ve worked very hard to build?”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’ll be our little secret,” Imogen replied as she bit into the apple. But she still had that _look,_ and it was infuriating even though it shouldn’t be, because Ellie knew that Imogen always saw the best in everything and everybody, in rickety old spaceships and run-down robots and morally questionable scientists and cynical mercenaries-

And maybe that was the part that Ellie hated the most- the fact that she didn’t actually hate being looked at that way. The idea that she might actually kind of like it, the way she might actually like the Captain and the crew and their crazy-

 _Family,_ the treacherous voice whispered, and Ellie grit her teeth.

No. The others might think that, but not her. She knew how things would fall when the chips were down, because no matter who held the cards it was always the same. And if there was one thing Ellie was acutely aware of, it was that even family didn’t count for all that much in the end. Imogen could look for the best in people all she wanted, and even occasionally find it…but that didn’t change the fact that the best of the worst still wasn’t worth all that much.

Even so, Ellie wasn’t going to turn tail just yet. She still had business to take care of, debts to settle. And if the Captain wasn’t going to watch her own damn back in this universe full of people just itching to stab it…well, Ellie would do that for her.

Not because she cared, but because Imogen believed she did. That sort of high-hoping trust was a rare thing, and Ellie didn’t want it but Imogen had given it to her anyway.

For that, Ellie owed her something in return, and she’d stick around until she figured out just what that something was.


End file.
